Title Taking the land to make the city : a bicoastal history of North America / Mary P. Ryan

Edition First edition Published Austin : University of Texas Press, 2019

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 438 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (some color), maps (some color Contents pt. 1. Taking the land -- Before the land was taken -- The British and the Americans take the Chesapeake -- The land of San Francisco Bay: cleared but not taken -- pt. 2. Making the municipality: the city and the pueblo -- Erecting Baltimore into a city : democracy as urban space, 1796-1819 -- Shaping the spaces of California : ranchos, plazas and pueblos, 1821-1846 -- pt. 3. Making the modern capitalist city -- Making Baltimore a modern city, 1828-1854 -- The capitalist "pueblo" : selling San Francisco 1847-1856 -- pt. 4. These united cities -- Baltimore, San Francisco and the Civil War -- Epilogue Summary The history of the United States is often told as a movement westward, beginning at the Atlantic coast and following farmers across the continent. But cities played an equally important role in the country's formation. Towns sprung up along the Pacific as well as the Atlantic, as Spaniards and Englishmen took Indian land and converted it into private property. In this reworking of early American history, Mary P. Ryan shows how cities--specifically San Francisco and Baltimore--were essential parties to the creation of the republics of the United States and Mexico. Baltimore and San Francisco share common roots as early trading centers whose coastal locations immersed them in an international circulation of goods and ideas. Ryan traces their beginnings back to the first human habitation of each area, showing how the juggernaut toward capitalism and nation-building could not commence until Europeans had taken the land for city building. She then recounts how Mexican ayuntamientos and Anglo American city councils pioneered a prescient form of municipal sovereignty that served as both a crucible for democracy and a handmaid of capitalism. Moving into the nineteenth century, Ryan shows how the citizens of Baltimore and San Francisco molded landscape forms associated with the modern city: the gridded downtown, rudimentary streetcar suburbs, and outlying great parks. This history culminates in the era of the Civil War when the economic engines of cities helped forge the East and the West into one nation Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject City planning -- California -- San Francisco -- History City planning -- Maryland -- Baltimore -- History Social change -- Environmental aspects HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- General. HISTORY / United States / General City planning SUBJECT San Francisco (Calif.) -- History -- 19th century Baltimore (Md.) -- History -- 19th century Subject California -- San Francisco Maryland -- Baltimore Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781477317846 1477317848 9781477317853 1477317856

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